Inspiring Women Spring 2018

addition to attending class, she practiced her sun salutations each morning and learned to
breathe and be still when meditating. After a year, Joanne was marching like a soldier again.
And at the end of our coaching, she was learning to play the piano, something she had always
wanted to do.
Pamela and martial arts
Pamela wasn’t lucky in childhood. She had been physically abused by her father and
emotionally abused by her mother. In her mid-thirties, in therapy, and very pregnant with her
second child, she requested that her parents and siblings join her for a session. It was there that
she realized that she was the only one who wanted harmony in the family. She told me that she
experienced a profound shift and finally understood that things would never get better. She got
back to the business of raising her own family in a healthy way, and to learning to accept her
“new” old reality. Pamela would tell you that the exploration she did with her therapist and
coach brought her a long way forward. Yet she also gives credit to something else – martial arts.
After a couple of years of three-times-a-week practice, Pamela sparred for the first time. She
faced a macho guy, returning his aggressive punches with her own. She felt a new energy when
they met eyes and bowed at the end of the fight. Unlike what Pamela experienced growing up,
this was a fair fight. She had held her own and departed the match with a new dignity and
strength she could call on going forward.
Alice and tennis
Alice was 45 with four children
ranging in age from 4 to 14
years old when her mother
died. She felt responsible. Her
mother had been with her for
the Christmas holidays when
she had chest pain. Rather
than take her to the hospital,
a neighbor who was a doctor
had checked her out and
told Alice: “Your mother’s
heart beats like a 50 year old
woman’s. She just needs
some rest.” Three weeks later, Alice’s mother was found slumped over her kitchen table, dead.
Alice’s grief was overwhelming, and while she did her best to hide it from her children and
husband, it went on for months. Eventually, she told a friend that she was emotionally exhausted
and didn’t know what to do. Her friend invited her to join her Thursday morning tennis group.
Alice hadn’t played tennis since adolescence, but accepted nonetheless. This was the start of a
love affair that endured for the rest of her life. Alice joined a tennis club and went from taking
lessons, to playing doubles on the C team, to playing doubles on the B team, to captaining the B
team, to being nominated Chairwoman of the Tennis Committee. She brought her children to
the tennis courts and taught them to play. One of her proudest moments was winning the club’s
Parent-Child tournament with her son. When her husband was sick with early onset Alzheimer’s,
Alice would sit him on a chair next to the court while she played, and when she mourned his
death, she played tennis the first thing in the morning because she said if she didn’t, she would
be depressed the entire day. Alice knew instinctively that practicing sport made her right, even if
she couldn’t have told you that it was because it permitted her brain to release endorphins.
Peter and spin class
Peter and his brother-in-law were the second generation to lead a successful family-owned
business. At work he was on the ball. But at home the story was different. Peter spent his evenings
watching sports, drinking wine, and falling asleep on the couch. It had been years that his wife
had watched him slowly gain weight and withdraw from family life. Finally, at 55 years old, Peter
decided that he wanted his life back. He attended AA meetings and stopped drinking. He
looked at his body and was disgusted. Peter had always liked cycling, so he tried out a spin
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